Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind of tension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open the studio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lit fire, her hands clasped round her knees.
She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon Peter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of colour drained away from her face.
"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for the back of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.
But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them as of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so that Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place. Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone together.
"Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," said
Nan at last.
She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.
"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it's—easy—for me to ask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . Dear God! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it undone?"
"I can't go back—I can't indeed! Why should I? I've only made Roger either furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn't as if I could do any good by going back!"
"Isn't it something good to have kept faith?" There was a stern note in his voice.
She looked at him wistfully.